Faze

You have a halo, hazy like the moon's.

You're singing lyrics lazy like the loon's

Your guitar grunges, gathers up new tunes.

I see your halo, hazy like the moon's.

You think that you can hide here in the mist--

You think that there is nothing, none you've missed.

The moon illuminates the haze--the days

Of dreams have danced us to a darker daze.

This phase, this phrase--I'm in a moon-filled faze--

I want to raise my gaze within this maze--

I want to find new fashions, form my fist--

Or, no--caress and care and craft what's kissed.

You have a halo, hazy like the moon's

That drives and dissipates all dreary noons

Whose too-bright light foreshadows all the runes

That make your halo hazy like the moon's.

Near-Sighted Love

You have to love a country from afar--

Where everything is out of focus, eyes

Inventing half of what it sees--don't mar

The visage with everything your heart denies.

The warts and moles and cancers and red boils,

The drooping eyes, the frizzy hair, the smell

Of something warm, bacterial recoils

The stomach, and you know that all's not well.

And yet, the human in you wants to hold

Her tight. And yet, the virtue in you wants

To push her far away. You'll stand alone.

And yet, there's nothing in her flaxen, gold,

Loose curls that doesn't pull. Yes, her hair haunts

Your heart--demands for justice turns to stone. 

Dream Cathedral

I wake from dreams of work--I'm weary--sleep

Won't let me rest--I lie upon the bed

And lie to all my weary ways that creep

Into the edge of consciousness I've fed.

I sit alone--I'm half-asleep--I perch

Upon the limb of R.E.M., erect

And at attention to the shadow-church

Of images awake I will select.

Bohemian success--my dreams address

Reality instead of all my aims--

My dreams betray my dreams, I must confess--

The edifice of art collapses, maims.

Cathedral of my dreams--I lay new stone--

For, for my Judas mind I must atone. 

Fire Season

In mountain firestorms the lake reflects--

While here, where heat is home, the cool collects

And washes trees down dry ravines where pools

Are parched, where fish reflect and we're made fools

By their philosophy. The heron's throat 

Is thirsting for its fish. The mountain goat

Is singed and sings its mountain-echoed bleat

Lamenting all its dead who weren't as fleet.

The earth is red, the moon is black in soot,

Tornado fires are twisting--underfoot,

The lightning strikes while northern shrikes stab mice

Upon acacia thorns. Their bones are dice

That roll beneath the burned and broken bramble.

Too dry and hot, too cool and wet--we gamble

And leave a shamble, ignorant of all

Our worth, our wealth--and we don't hear the call.

The wolves are silent--monarchs flit and fly,

Pretending that they rule. The fish reply 

With fingerprint-ridged scales that prism-days

Are when the heron hunts. Blue breaks the waves. 

My I

When I says "My body" who is this "My"?

Am I not my body? Is it my "I"?

If it is not my body, can it die?

If it is not my body, how can I

Control my body, make it move and cry?

Could this separation be a true lie?

If I say that I know that I will die,

Do I mean this, my body, or my "My"?

Do thoughts such as these make you rage or cry?

We ask such thoughts, but then only get by

On the simplest thoughts, so why even try

To ask what happens when our deaths draw nigh?

This is what makes us ask the question 'Why?"

And no matter how hard, I cannot shy

From asking what or even who am I?

I am this I who I see--I am I--

I am this body, my body's my "My"--

My eye I see I see now is my I.

When I meditate on it, I see my

I looking down at my I, and my I

Looks at my I looking at me, my I.

And all of it, my "I"s, are my body,

And, as my body, change and let me be--

And, knowing this, now I know that I'm free.